Welcome

I've remade a sign like this for our fifth grade hallway, but I love this teacher's version:

(Why wouldn't I, it has polka dots!)

It's great to post in the hallway to remind students of exactly what is expected when they enter your room :)

Reading notebooks so far

Week 4, Day 2

We have most of the kinks worked out with our notebooks.

Our reading one has our table of contents:

We've recorded a lot of our thoughts in our notebooks.

Here is a poem we analyzed and worked on recording our thinking:

We've been reading aloud Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief, which my students are absolutely loving!

We practiced making predictions based on the front and back covers as well as the table of contents.  We discussed the importance of noticing illustrations and making predictions about the story.  They did a really great job with this lesson.

Here we have been keeping track of characters in our novels:

We will compare and contrast them, but it's important for students to keep track of characters as they grow over the novel.

We also have used this FCRR think sheet

to analyze Percy :)

Here we have our reference sheet for context clues (from the previously mentioned amazing CORE source book)

We used the context clues lesson when we re-read parts of the Lightning Thief to focus on unknown words.  They are working on determining meaning based on context clues:

Here we tried a new strategy called brain mapping:

We cut apart a thinking map and added our own thoughts.  It took WAY longer than anticipated and I'm not sure we'll be doing it again any time soon, but it was nice to show students a new way to record their notes.

We are working on figurative language in our intervention block as well as in whole group reading.  We are applying these terms to analyzing poems.

Here is the poem we are working on:

We read it today to look for figurative language.  Tomorrow we will re-read the passage with the intention of looking for theme.

Our poem is slightly too long for our notebooks, 

so we problem solved by folding it in half and only gluing in part :)

Here is our thinking sheet about comparing and contrasting settings that was made by my awesome colleague:

We will be using it when we analyze different settings in The Lightning Thief.

Here is our phrasing lesson and a half sheet reference for Greek gods (to help with the Lightning Thief)

We've done a lot in the first few weeks of school!

Bulletin Board

We had our first bulletin boards due yesterday.

It felt like a little bit of a time crunch because we'd only been in school for nine days and those days were jammed packed with classroom norms, procedures, computer benchmark tests, AIMSweb tests, meet the coaches lesson, meet the counselor lesson and an assembly or two.

As a grade level, we decided to do something with syllable types because it's what we've been focusing on and it's part of our standards (RF 5.3a to be exact!).

We had the students break their own names apart by syllables and create a foldable.  Their names were on the outside and you can flip up to see what type of syllable it is and how they know.  Underneath, they wrote justifications of how syllables help them to read "big scary words" and help with spelling.  

This perfectly aligns with the wordle we made when we analyzed our weaknesses in writing last week.

For students' privacy, I won't post a picture of their names but it's half of our bulletin board.

We are continuing to learn about syllables next week but I had some of the students with a solid grasp on syllables break apart unknown words.  I chose upcoming vocabulary words for Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief so there would be a connection with our read aloud.

They worked in teams to break apart the multisyllabic words, identify the syllables and write how the syllables help them with the words.

And tada, part of my bulletin board!

Week 2 Recap

Somehow, yesterday managed to be even longer than Thursday.

My to do list also grew, which makes today a catch up day.  When I'm not working on something for school, my procrastination (besides this) will be chores around the house and errands.

We have our groups made since we start switching for math and small groups (reading) on Monday.  To help my students, I put sticky labels on their desks with where they go for AM and PM as well as what they're supposed to take.  I'm hoping it eases down on the rushing back and forth to classes because something was left behind. 

My students are great.  Talkative, but great.  Truth be told, I'd rather have a group that talks with one another then one that sits and looks blankly at each other.

Here are my Batman birthday flowers from a student:

And a Batman Powder Puff girl drawing from another:

I am a very lucky teacher :)

We've spend the second week continuing to establish norms, build community, go over the math practices, practicing good reading strategies, working on our notebooks, reading aloud Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief and doing beginning of the year benchmark testing.

Here is one of our fluency lessons, focusing on phrasing:

Phrasing is a component of fluency where students read in meaningful phrases.  The goal is not to read words one at a time, but rather in chunks that aid in comprehension.  Students received a passage and put in lines to indicate where they as readers would want to pause when reading aloud.  We went over pausing at commas and stopping at punctuation marks.  We did the first paragraph together, then they worked on the rest as table teams.  When we were all done, we practiced chorally whisper reading.

The lesson comes from the CORE source book...

...which is amazing :)

We also have started this anchor chart on interesting words from our reading:

As well as this one on what good readers do:

This one on metacognition and reading strategies:

And this one on what mathematicians do: 

My classroom has lots of anchor charts :)

Week 2 is done, 9 days in.  I'm excited for all the exciting learning we have ahead of us on our academic journey :)

Beginning of the Year Activity Pack

In preparation for the upcoming school year, I made a bundle pack of 6 different back to school activities and ice breakers that are appropriate for elementary and middle school.  

All you need to do is print and go!  This fifteen pager is a must have!

Grab yours here!

No Way Jose and That's a Fact, Jack!

No Way Jose and That's a Fact, Jack!

Last year, a teacher at my school introduced me to the phrase and activity "No Way Jose" and "That's a Fact, Jack".  Students are given a set of statements that they must determine to be accurate (that's a fact, Jack!) or false (no way, Jose!).  Students work collaboratively to sort the statements into two piles and discuss their reasons. 

This can be used for all academic purposes and is a great formative assessment.

I used it last year as a formative assessment for our state wide science test.  There were a lot of concepts that were covered on the test but not enough time to fully teach or review all of the science material they were supposed to get from kinder on up.  So I had students work as table teams to sort the statements while I walked around with a clip board, making note of which concepts would need quick clarification and which ones would require more extensive review.  I allotted fifteen minutes for this activity, but it ended up taking almost forty because students were having such great discussions (and I hated to cut them off).

This year, I'm starting the year off with a team building activity.  After going over the expectations (noise level, cooperation, effort, clean up, gallery walks, etc), I will have students work collaboratively to sort out the fifth grade myths from the facts.  They will do this on the third day of school when we've covered most of the procedures and norms for the grade level.  I'll give them about ten minutes to sort, then have students do a gallery walk to see each other's ideas.  The expectation during gallery walks is that it's okay to point and disagree (respectfully) with another table's findings, but it's not okay to change their work.  We will then go over the answers as a class and I'll use that time to clarify any myths surrounding fifth grade.  

Here is a sample of the sort:

I made it in word as a table.  Once completed, each sort will be three pages long. I'll print multiple copies in different colors, that way when I inevitably find that one forgotten slip, it will be easy to return it to the proper bag.  Not that students ever forget to fully pick up centers :)

I'm hoping it adds more joy into our day and helps students to work on collaborating with one another.